Arsenal vs Portsmouth - Emirates Stadium, London - Sunday 2nd September 2007

The third Arsenal home game in just over a week (I missed the Prague game in midweek), saw us playing at the Emirates Stadium on Saturday, Wednesday, then again on Sunday. Another annoying Sunday lunchtime kick-off, but this time the game was at least moved for TV, rather than London Underground engineering works.

In the short time since the Sparta Prague game on Wednesday, we have learned our Champions League draw, (including another trip back to Prague); signed Lassana Diarra from Chelsea, minutes before the transfer deadline; and David Dein sold his shares in the club, to a consortium headed by a Russian billionaire. Reading more about our new shareholder doesn't exactly fill the typical Arsenal fan with delight - all that we hate about Chelsea might be about to happen to us, and it is most unwelcome. Suddenly, Stan Kroenke doesn't seem like such a bad option after all, compared with a Russian oligarch. In any case, Arsene Wenger practically refuses to spend the money he does have available, so what is the point of bringing in a sugar daddy - it is just more cash for Wenger (assuming he sticks around) to refuse to spend! And, many of the accusations around our new shareholder really do leave a bad taste in the mouth - it seems that David Dein has not exactly given 2 hoots who he sold his shares out to. All very concerning indeed, and not what I want for Arsenal.

Anyway, to the Portsmouth game, which was preceded by a visit from Bob Wilson to The Rocket pub before kick off. A great man, Arsenal through and through, he collected a cheque for his charity, the Willow Foundation. Inside the stadium, the prospect of seeing Kanu, Lauren and Campbell (who didn't play in the end) again, was filling people with excitement, as well as all of the off-field fun that had been going on for the previous few days.

This game was a hugely encouraging performance all round - at times (and I'll say this quietly), the football was reminiscent of our play during the unbeaten run a few years ago, when we were arguably the best team in the world. Many of the moves were fluent, we had goals from midfield, and we scored early, to put ourselves in the driving seat from very early on. Fabregas and Rosicky had great games, but in truth, most of the side played really well - it was just one of those games when everything seemed to come together.

Arsenal took the lead inside ten minutes, when Van Persie was upended by David James, and Adebayor stroked home the resulting penalty. I thought that James was slightly lucky to avoid any colour of card, especially since Senderos was later sent off for a pretty similar type of foul. An early goal was quite unusual for the new stadium, but most welcome - especially after we enjoyed the same thing in the Sparta Prague game. Cesc Fabregas scored another welcome goal before half time, welcome because he was foraging in the box, and picked up a loose ball to scramble it home. He did well to get into that kind of position, and it was good to see midfielders getting into poaching positions.

Almost immediately after half time, Senderos was sent off for a professional foul - in truth there could be few complaints, but when David James got away with something similar earlier in the game, it didn't make the referee any friends in the crowd. The third Arsenal goal was bizarre - it came from a free kick which Fabregas took close to the corner flag, and passed to Rosicky. The Pompey defence just seemed to stand still, totally switched off, so Rosicky took advantage of the opportunity to drill a shot past them all, into a pretty wide open net. Very nice, and a big thanks to the Portsmouth defence, for completely switching off.

Sadly, we did more of the same (switching off) a minute later, conceding a consolation goal to Kanu, which seemed to just bounce in off his leg - but we then closed out the victory that took us to second place in the league. Chelsea losing their game later in the day, plus a Perry Groves karaoke performance in The Rocket, sent many Arsenal fans home both drunk and happy.

Now, a fortnight of internationals is rarely welcomed by Arsenal fans, but this time, it comes with mixed feelings. It is good to switch off from Wenger's contract uncertainty, and to forget about the Russian takeover. But, we have started to really hit a decent run of form, so we don't need this 2-week break to interrupt us. It is Spurs away next, so hopefully we won't have too many injuries returning from all the corners of the world.